Tracking the political discourse regarding SOPA proved to be quite instructive in ways I hadn’t anticipated. My own view on the proposed bill was that, while the aims weren’t entirely bad, some of the presumptions in the law overreached in ways with which I wasn’t comfortable. For example, shifting the burden of policing to websites rather than the copyright holders and allowing those sites to be blocked in their entirety if they run afoul of SOPA is problematic. Concerned about just how broad that might be applied, I opposed the new law on those grounds.
The wave of controversy over SOPA didn’t come as any shock. What I found strange was that many of those standing against the bill did such an effective job of framing the narrative precisely to their collective liking, reality be damned.
If the anecdotal evidence I amassed from political and tech blogs (plus social network postings) is any indication at all, the evolving conventional wisdom about the bill held that SOPA was an assault on “free speech” advanced by large, powerful, agenda-driven corporations. The opposition, by contrast, were egalitarian everymen who were trying to stop these corporations from stifling innovation and having even more control over the lives of the common people.
There was a very small kernel of truth in there somewhere. There were undoubtedly large IP holders who saw SOPA as a way of protecting some of their most valuable commodities against further piracy by scaring file-sharing services of all kinds out of business. However, what opponents seemed to miss was that this was in no way a battle between large corporate interests on one side and the common man on the other. In fact, it was a battle between those who profit from IP (artists, rights-holders, the Hollywood lobby, etc) and those who benefit from loose IP restrictions (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, AOL, pirates, etc).
Today is my birthday. That fact triggers no negative emotion whatsoever. I don’t feel as old as the calendar tells me I am.
The much-anticipated return of the FX comedy comes after a strong run to end the second season, followed by a three-episode arc to bridge the gap between the second season and the third. Fox seems to have committed to Archer more than ever, as the parent network has been promoting the show to a greater extent than I recall in prior years.
Tim Tebow’s harshest critics—just like his strongest supporters—remain resolute in their opinions despite any evidence to the contrary. But how many of his detractors can honestly say that he didn’t exceed the level of success they anticipated? Recall that Denver had gone 5-16 in its previous 21 games before Tebow got the starting job for good in Week Seven of 2011.
The WWE admittedly relied more consistently on this particular trick of the trade when it was a regional promotion that ran nearly all of its major shows out of immigrant-heavy New York City. But promotions all over the world used this tactic. It’s a simple formula that persists to this day. Santino Marella is an entertaining, some-might-say-offensive Italian stereotype. Sheamus was touted repeatedly as the first Irish-born WWE champion in history. Drew McIntyre (remember him?) incorporates the Scottish national flag into his ring attire. Wade Barrett boasts about becoming the first English World Heavyweight Champion sometime in the near future.
Tonight’s Monday Night RAW featured the payoff to a long-running series of vignettes in the form of the return of 
This year began with me being bitten in the face by a dog and will end with me staring at a dwindling bank account and vowing to reform my questionable eating and exercise regimen before I suffer a coronary.
SitCombat: 1/26/12
Archer dominated SitCombat last week with an impressive season premiere featuring Burt Reynolds. However, 30 Rock has a chance at redemption with the payoff to a two-part episode. But there’s a twist to tonight’s SitCombat battle . . .
This was SitCombat for January 26, 2012: Continue reading →
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